Pretty in pink

There was a lot of press for the event this year, mainly because Lance Armstrong was in Cape Town doing fund-raising work, and also racing in the pro-race. I think Pieter’s outfit got as much attention as Lance. Almost every spectator we passed had something to say. He was called everything from the tooth fairy to a pink elephant.

Lance who?

All the girls loved pink. Here Pieter is accosting some young promo girls.

Mmm, can I take you home?

In Noordhoek we spotted someone that had their coffee machine wired up next to the road. So of course we invited ourselves for a round of cappucinos.

Coffee!!

A great way to spend the Argus. I think next year I’ll also be dressing up. Any suggestions for costumes?

Read the original blog post here Argus Cycle Tour, with a fairy! Content copyright Nick Coyne Photography, Cape Town wedding photographer.

The result was a slight fall-off in CTL, and now its rising gradually again, up to 88 as of today.

The next two weeks are planned to be slightly heaver, so CTL should gain another 10 or so in the next 10 days. My power at various durations still has some way to go. At 1min I’m about 30w off my best, which isn’t too bad. At 5mins I’m 25w off my best, but at 10mins there’s a massive 45w deficit to catch up. 20mins is only 15w short though.

4 weeks to go until the first race of the season, so I’ll be looking to improve on the 5 and 10min numbers by then. My goal is to match these numbers by 4 weeks, and to beat them before the start of the Cape Epic. Goals are
* 5sec: 20w/kg
* 1min: 9w/kg (currently 7.5)
* 5min: 6w/kg (currently 5.3)
* 60min: 4.5w/kg (currently 4.0. This will come in a race, I don’t generally do 1hr TTs)

Read the original blog post here Getting there Content copyright Nick Coyne Photography, Cape Town wedding photographer.

Read the original blog post here Great cycling site Content copyright Nick Coyne Photography, Cape Town wedding photographer.

This chart shows my steady increase in TSS load per week. My last week hit a new high of 780TSS. This coming week will slack off a bit, then I’ll pick it up again, aiming to level out at around 700-800TSS per week until I have the time to give it a bit of a kick. That’ll probably start around the middle/end of December.

The result of the steady increase in load is this. A nice progression in CTL…

The blue line is CTL. Yellow line is TSB (training-stress balance). TSB is at a new low, so I’ll take today off, and either a short ride or another day off tomorrow.

My training rides have focussed on L3/L4 work, and while my threshold power is still down from where it was last year, I’m finding I can ride at high L3 for long periods. On yesterday’s 140km Double Century training ride, I managed a 20min L4 interval three and a half hours into our ride. Comparing my numbers to my bests, for the range around 30min duration, I’m only about 10w down. The gap widens on shorter durations, probably because of the lack of racing, and the gap is wider, but not too bad, for longer durations. For now I’ll continue to focus on L3/L4 work and in December I’ll start with L5 work in preparation for summer racing.

I’m very happy with how smoothly things have gone so far. Hopefully illness and work interruptions stay clear so that the trend can continue.

Read the original blog post here Fitness improving Content copyright Nick Coyne Photography, Cape Town wedding photographer.

Total bike weight as you see it in the pic, is now 10.6kg. Future upgrade possibilities are:
* Hope blue seatpost collar
* Hope blue quick-releases
* KCNC blue pulley wheels
* KCNC SC Bone handlebars
* maybe a new saddle

More pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/nic.coyne/GiantAnthemX

Read the original blog post here Upgraded build Content copyright Nick Coyne Photography, Cape Town wedding photographer.

All the Giant’s bits got moved to the Zen, which is now Nicole’s bike.

Read the original blog post here New bike! :) Content copyright Nick Coyne Photography, Cape Town wedding photographer.

Min CTL: 40 (after a week overseas, and being rather busy for the week before that)
Max CTL: 85 (just the other day, and increasing :))
Total TSS: 25,954
Total Kj: 266,504
Total Time: 430 hrs
Ave IF: 0.774

Very nice to see my CTL high for the year coming right at the end. I’m putting in a lot of training at the moment to try and lift it to ~100TSS before Sani2C at the end of Feb. I know work is likely to get in the way at some point before then, so I’ll need to take it up to 110TSS if I can, to give me some room to lose CTL to the interruptions. Last time I was up at those levels was before the 2004 Cape Epic, and if I can race Sani2C the way I raced that Epic I’ll be very happy.

Read the original blog post here 2007 Training Summary Content copyright Nick Coyne Photography, Cape Town wedding photographer.

It was a great team effort with 9 of our 10 starters finishing together. The only person to miss out was Frank who had an unfortunate incident involving a musette and his front wheel. Said musette stopped Frank’s front wheel from rotating causing Frank to go flying over the bars. Fortunately Frank wasn’t hurt, but his wheel lost a spoke and our support vehicle was not around to give him a replacement.

Comparing numbers with last year’s race, it seems I went harder despite being less fit. I certainly felt better after last year’s race. This year everybody was completely knackered, apart from Paul who looked like he was ready for another lap.

Still awaiting the results on the PPA site. Hopefully we made the top 10

Read the original blog post here Sub – 6 Content copyright Nick Coyne Photography, Cape Town wedding photographer.

I’ve been off the bike for 10 days, so I sat in as much as I could to save my legs. We were quite a big bunch going over Hels with Paul setting a very manageable tempo. About 15k’s from the end Team BMP still had 5 riders so we started attacking. First Peter, then Andreas, then Paul. Paul was marked very closely by Shaun and John, so we started again – Peter, Andreas, Paul. Nothing looked like it would stick, but we were tiring out the main sprint contenders while we still had Garron sitting comfortably in the bunch.

About 3k’s out I got away with Alister Arenson on the rise up to Paarl Main Rd. Surprisingly we got a good gap, but my lack of riding in the last few weeks saw me not recovering from the initial attack effort, and Alister did 75% of the work. When it came to crunch time, the final k, my legs were toast, and we were swallowed up with 50m to the line. My disappointment quickly changed though when I saw it was Garron flying past ahead of Shaun, taking a well-deserved win!

And that wraps up a great spring League campaign. 4 wins and 3rd overall for Paul.

Read the original blog post here Team BMP takes 4 out of 4 Content copyright Nick Coyne Photography, Cape Town wedding photographer.

Read the original blog post here 10 days off :( Content copyright Nick Coyne Photography, Cape Town wedding photographer.